The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Snip, Snip, Snip
by Elaine Pascale

Snip…snip…snip

The dark cave was littered with scraps of black paper; the detritus of many “start overs.”

“You are adding too many branches,” Clotho sighed. “That is not what I asked for.”

Snip…snip…snip

“You have changed your mind many times,” Atropos responded. “It is unlike you to be undecided.”

“And it is like you to be inflexible. You have seen images similar to what I want. A creepy tree…a black cat…”

“I will add those girls you decided against sparing last week,” Atropos giggled, “that was particularly cruel.”

“Blame her,” Clotho pointed to Lachesis, “She measured out such a small amount of thread that they wouldn’t have had much additional time. Better to end things now.”

“It’s never your fault,” Lachesis sighed. She massaged her gnarled joints that had become bulbous from eons of measuring and winding thread. “Just cut as she wants, dear sister,” she instructed Atropos. “It would be lovely to render the branches as bent and withered as we have become.”

“Impossible,” Atropos protested. “The scissors have been made dull by recent events. I cut  threads so frequently I am left with no time to sharpen them. And now you ask for…decorations.”

“We will have to get ready for Halloween despite the pandemic,” Lachesis grinned, “at least, that is what I have heard the mortals say.”

“You listen to them?”

Lachesis had returned to winding thread around tiny spools. “I like to understand my work.”

Clotho rolled her rheumy eyes. “We have spent an eternity pretending to understand them.  Please do not forget to add the cat. I love cats…”

“Yes…the girls and the cat…then I go back to cutting the humans’ threads?”

Lachesis rubbed her hairy chin thoughtfully, “After November 3, you will cut all the humans’ threads.”

Fiction © Copyright Elaine Pascale
Image courtesy of  Christina Sng

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